Leveraging technologies for data management and sharing to foster collaboration and implement data spaces.

Area of Science:

• Data Science
• Information Systems
• European Policy

Background:

• The European Strategy for Data promotes Common European Data Spaces to foster economic growth and data utilization.
• Data spaces are crucial for strategic sectors, requiring robust data management and sharing capabilities.
• Despite initiatives, data spaces face significant development and implementation challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify essential requirements for effective data management and sharing within European data spaces.
• To develop a conceptual framework for applying data management and sharing principles to data spaces.
• To evaluate practical solutions and identify best practices through analysis of European-funded projects.

Main Methods:

• Literature review to establish a conceptual framework for data management and sharing in data spaces.
• Analysis of six representative European-funded projects to assess practical implementation of proposed solutions.
• Evaluation of projects based on requirements including trust, business models, interoperability, workflow orchestration, energy efficiency, and data quality.

Main Results:

• Identified key requirements and prominent issues in data space development, covering trust, interoperability, and data quality.
• Highlighted widely accepted strategies like semantic standards, data catalogues, distributed ledger technologies, and federated identity management.
• Recognized recurring patterns, common practices, and implementation differences across projects, alongside open research gaps.

Conclusions:

• The study provides concrete recommendations for researchers and practitioners to achieve best practices in data space implementation.
• It aims to inform future initiatives towards scalable, stable, and cross-domain data spaces.
• The findings support sustainable innovation and long-term collaboration across Europe through mature data space ecosystems.